Cookability

Potage Paysanne

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 18:21:21 GMT

Posted by: zdashamber

I found this in "The Blender Cookbook" from 1961, but I think it's better unblended. Since it all gets simmered, I don't see any reason why it couldn't start from frozen prechopped stuff. I like potato skins when baked or mashed, so why not when boiled?

It's one of the simplest recipes I love, and I think it only involves peeling/chopping, assembling, and then eating once the simmering is done. There is a lot of flavor for so few ingredients.

__Ingredients__

-2 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced
-1 medium onion, sliced
-1/2 pound (~1/4 kg) fresh spinach
-3/4 cup (180 ml) water
-2 chicken boullion cubes
-1/8 tsp pepper

__Instructions__

Simmer for 15 minutes

They also suggest adding 1 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp nutmeg, but I think the chicken stock/boullion is salty enough, and I'm not a fan of nutmeg. They suggest blending when it has simmered and then adding 1 cup cream, but when I tried, that seemed to unnecessarily mash the flavors. Their other suggestion is to chill the blended potage and serve it with a sour cream topping. It's supposed to serve 6, but my recollection is that it serves 2. Maybe I usually make it smaller. I've tried it with veggie stock, and that is also tasty, though I like it less well. I upped the number of boullion cubes from 1 to 2 since more is better there, IMO.

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Very simple drop biscuits

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 04:43:26 GMT

Posted by: steorra

I've been remembering recently what a simple and useful recipe scones are. They're a very versatile recipe, and I've made a post in boilingwater giving my mom's basic recipe and outlining some of the various substitutions and variations that are possible. I thought for this community I'd try posting a version of the recipe that's stripped down to the bare minimum, to be as simple as possible. This is a cross between a variant of my mother's scone recipe and a biscuit recipe from the More with Less cookbook. I'm calling this version biscuits rather than scones because they use baking powder rather than baking soda and cream of tartar as leavening. They're drop biscuits because you drop them like cookies onto a baking sheet rather than rolling out the dough and cutting out the scones.

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter or margarine (or less; down to 2 tablespoons should be okay)
1 cup water

Instructions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit (approximately 215-220 degrees Celsius).

Mix together in a bowl the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Cut or rub in the butter or margarine.

Add the water, and mix quickly to form a soft dough.

Grease a baking sheet. Use spoons to drop the dough like cookies onto the baking sheet.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes. Best served hot.

(Note: this is an unsweetened variant, because omitting sugar is simplest. For slightly sweet biscuits, add 2-3 tablespoons sugar before adding water. For more information about variations and substitutions, see my post on scones in boilingwater.)

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Almost Spoonless Tuna Bean Salad

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 12:04:52 GMT

Posted by: rydra_wong

This may be the lowest-spoon recipe I know that actually qualifies as a "recipe" rather than just "eating stuff out of a tin."

Pros: requires no cooking, can be prepared in under five minutes, made out of store cupboard/long-lasting ingredients, tasty, high protein and low glycemic load (useful if this meets your nutritional needs), limited washing up.

Cons: requires some chopping.

Ingredients:
1 tin butter beans (lima beans)
1 tin tuna in olive oil
10-20g raw red onion ("several slices" works fine)
1 tbsp cider vinegar

Drain and rinse the beans. Chop the onion.

Tip the tuna (oil and all) into a large bowl and mash with a fork. Add the beans, onion and vinegar.

Stir. Eat.

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